How far right are you?

[Admiral Yi]

You learn that wages are sticky downwards in Macro 101.

[Ideologue]

How many people take Macro 101, Harvard?

[Eddie Teach]

Everyone would remember that the wage for the shittiest job in the world used to be $7.25/hr,

When was this? 

[Ideologue]

Well, February 2012, I can tell you that for a fact, jack.

[Ideologue]

P.S. World = America.  Job = lawful, paying job.

[Admiral Yi]

How many people take Macro 101, Harvard?

When you said there are psychological aspects to economics that are overlooked, I didn't think you were talking about people who overlooked economics entirely.

[Ideologue]

I think a lot of folks have opinions about economics that have never taken courses in it or read a book about it, and downward wage rigidity may very well be news to them.

[Admiral Yi]

Quit stalking me.

[Ideologue]

I don't get it.  Also, you're mean.

[Admiral Yi]

It was a joke.  You're a fag.

[Berkut]

Technology will replace many workers, while at the same time creating many new jobs we cannot even imagine today.

I wonder why we can't imagine it.  It might be because it's an unexamined article of faith amongst rightists and neoliberals, its sole logical underpinning an inductive process that assumes since the economy created jobs after the collapse of agriculture and industry in the West it will also create jobs following the collapse of service sector work.  It would be more persuasive if the goal of capitalism were to create jobs, when of course it isn't.  Capitalism, like evolution, is a mindless process that doesn't have a teleological goal at all; the goal of avowed capitalists is to create wealth (for themselves).  That it's resulted in wealth generation that has been shared (albeit markedly unevenly) by all sectors of society is a meaningless thing to point out, since capitalism did it entirely by accident.  It's even more meaningless, given that the conditions which permitted that have been replaced by new conditions to which you'd prefer to remain willfully blind--not least the end of the mid-century consensus towards a compromise with socialism's economic goals as a way to fight socialism politically at home and abroad.  But above all you purposefully fail to comprehend the automation revolution that is underway, comparing it to farmhands moving to cities.  In reality it is like nothing previously seen in human affairs.  There is no fourth labor sector.

Sadly, the less-educated rightists and the more pie-eyed neoliberals have bought into several decades of propaganda and come to anthropomorphize capitalism as an conscious entity that has a list of priorities, with job creation at the top.  All will be well--because their priests tell them so.  That this incredibly adolescent worldview can be accepted by idiots is not too surprising, but that it is parroted by otherwise smart people is amazing.

Holy crap, I kind of agree with a lot of this.

WTF is wrong with me?

[garbon]

Well at least you recognize something is wrong.

[Eddie Teach]

Nothing's wrong. Ide simply sees with more clarity the problems of the world that is than those of the one he would create.

[frunk]

I would actually be in favor of getting rid of the minimum wage.  It's far too rigid and unadaptable to changing circumstance, not to mention unlikely to do what it is trying to do.

I'd prefer a stronger social safety net instead, encouraging people to work even really low wage jobs but provide support to make sure they can afford food/housing.

[Admiral Yi]

I'd prefer a stronger social safety net instead, encouraging people to work even really low wage jobs but provide support to make sure they can afford food/housing.

Then you'd have people yelling at you for subsidizing fast food franchises.